An early science fiction novel, said to be the progenitor
of the sword-and-planet genre. Greg created what may have been the first
artistic language that was described with linguistic and grammatical terminology.
The book details the creation and use of apergy, a form of anti-gravitational
energy, and details a flight to Mars in 1830. The planet is inhabited by
diminutive beings; they are convinced that life does not exist elsewhere
than on their world, and refuse to believe that the unnamed narrator is
actually from Earth. (They think he's an unusually tall Martian from some
remote place on their planet.) The book's narrator names his spacecraft
the "Astronaut." This is possibly the first instance in the English language
of the word.